Results tagged “red wolf conspiracy”

There were a number of great debut books last year and Robert V.S. Redick wrote one of them—The Red Wolf Conspiracy.

If you haven’t, do yourself a favor!

Now, with only a few months left before its release, here is the cover for The Ruling Sea, the sequel to The Red Wolf Conspiracy!

I have to say I love this cover, even more than the one on Red Wolf. The Ruling Sea cover matches up nicely with the theme of the first—instead of giant sword it has a spear, the fonts used are the same, and instead of an ocean background this cover has a map and compass. It all works and I am happy to see it.

I wonder what Robert thinks? In my opinion he has gotten great covers from both his US and UK publishers.

Here is the summary for The Ruling Sea:

In his acclaimed first novel, The Red Wolf Conspiracy, Robert V. S. Redick launched the gargantuan ship Chathrand and its motley crew of misfits, murderers, and monsters toward a landfall that may exist only in legend. Now Redick masterfully ratchets up the suspense with deep intrigue, ancient powers, and shocking new revelations.

Though the immediate plans of the dark sorcerer Arunis have been thwarted, the battle for control of the Chathrand, on which the fate of empires hinges, is far from over. On board, a small band of allies bound together less by trust than by desperate need scrambles for a means to defeat the conspiracy, while the nobleborn Thasha Isiq and the lowly deckhand Pazel Pathkendle find themselves unwillingly drawn inward to the plot’s core—and into a deadly game that will force them to make hard sacrifices.

The wizard Ramachni has left the travelers and retreated to his own world to nurse his battle wounds, but Arunis remains at large—weakened, yet still a terrifying foe. More pressing is the conspiracy of the Arquali Emperor, his chief assassin, Sandor Ott, and the Chathrand’s notorious captain, Nilus Rose, to use the dawn wedding of Thasha and a Mzithrin prince as a signal to launch a war.

With every move they make, Thasha and her compatriots find that they have more to lose—especially the deposed ixchel queen, Diadrelu, and the woken rat, Felthrup, who each harbor terrible secrets they dare not reveal.

Worst of all is a hidden, festering horror lurking in the hold of the Chathrand. A danger that not even Ramachni could have foreseen, it is the twisted product of a malevolent power determined to pull down the pillars of the world.

Now, as the Chathrand sets course through the uncharted waters of the vast and mysterious Ruling Sea, the fragile bonds of trust and love beginning to form between the unlikely allies will be tested to the breaking point—by unspeakable terrors, magical wonders, and shattering betrayals that dwarf anything that has come before.

Sounds awesome! I cannot wait! The Ruling Sea will be published in the US on February 16, 2010!

I was perusing the internet(s) this morning when I ran across a thought-provoking blog post by author Robert V.S. Redick.

Robert is the author of the widely-acclaimed debut novel, The Red Wolf Conspiracy. We met at the 2009 NY Comic Con and after only talking to him for a few moments I was struck by how thoughtful and balanced he approached the conversation. Later that night at the Random House con party, I realized Robert is one of the smartest people I’ve ever met.

So when he decided to write a blog post about Star Trek and how the series has progressed over the last 40 years, I was curious what he had to say.

After the huge success of J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek, what Robert had to say shocked me a bit.

Read the post HERE! And definitely comment on it.

After reading it twice, I think Robert is daring people to comment!

Whew! Talk about an energetic chat, eh? Peter V. Brett and Robert V.S. Redick covered everything from writing and research, inspiration, movie deals, book sequels, and gave us a look at some really awesome artwork! So, maybe you’d like to take them home with you…in chat window form, that is.

Be our guest! You can find the embed code for the archived chat below. Just an FYI, in the future, instead of doing these quick posts with the embed code, I will be adding it to the bottom of the chat window post. So look for it there in the future! In the meantime, enjoy all the goodness that was:

Embed Code:

In just two hours Robert V.S. Redick (The Red Wolf Conspiracy) and Peter V. Brett (The Warded Man, or internationally The Painted Man) will be chatting live here on Suvudu. These two authors represent two exciting new voices in fantasy fiction and we’re thrilled to be able to bring them to you live.

There’s still time to submit your questions early, if you’d like to do so. You can send them in to us at info@suvudu. Or, you can hang out and ask the questions yourself during the live chat. The choice is yours.

So use these next couple of hours to tidy up your loose ends for the afternoon, shuffle your calendar, and get ready to chat with a couple authors (and all around cool guys). We’ll see you there…soon!

Catch the Live Chat here: Peter V. Brett and Robert V.S. Redick Live Chat

Oh, and the legal here: Official Sweepstakes Rules

So, tomorrow Peter V. Brett (author of The Warded Man) and Robert V.S. Redick (author of The Red Wolf Conspiracy) will be live chatting with Suvudu and you! We’re really excited to be able to bring them here as they are, in our humble opinions, exciting new voices in the fantasy genre.

Anyway, how would you like to win a copy of either The Warded Man or The Red Wolf Conspiracy? All you need to do is send in a question for either Mr. Brett or Mr. Redick to be entered into a sweepstakes to win one copy of their book*. To be clear, we’ll be selecting two people from those who submit early questions; one will win a copy of The Warded Man and one will win a copy of The Red Wolf Conspiracy. Pretty cool, no?

Also, be sure to attend the chat to see your questions answered by the authors and/or to follow up with them live. Send yourself a reminder using the form below and we’ll see you back here for the chat tomorrow!

Read the Official Sweepstakes Rules here!

As you may have heard, we’re doing this new thing around here: inviting authors to sit down and have a conversation with you (and with us, because we’re fans too, ya know). Anyway, we realize that sometimes the outside world interferes with your plans to veg out on science fiction and fantasy (stupid “need to remain gainfully employed”). So, if you can’t make it to the chat, you can submit your questions in advance to info@suvudu.com.

Also, while you’re here, why not sign up to have an email reminder sent to you? You can use the form below to take care of that:

It’s going to be a great chat and we Suvudu-ites look forward to seeing you there!

Terry Brooks, the New York Times bestselling author of the high fantasy Shannara series, has reviewed Robert V.S. Redick’s The Red Wolf Conspiracy for Amazon!

Here is Terry’s review for The Red Wolf Conspiracy:

“Robert V. S. Redick has accomplished something rather extraordinary in his new fantasy adventure novel, The Red Wolf Conspiracy, the first in what I predict will be an eagerly awaited series. His accomplishment is in crafting a story that is a throwback to the days of the European Adventure story writers—Stevenson, Dumas, Scott and the like—a tale that is a gripping page-turner accessible to all ages. I seek stories like this constantly and seldom find them. Here we have a good one. The characters are memorable and fully realized, from the lowly tarboy Pazel Pashkendle to the unwilling young bride Thasha to the half-mad captain Nilus Rose to the powerful sorcerer Ramachni. As the story proceeds, we come to know and care about all of them, the good and the bad, the high and the low. We want to know their fates, and we will follow the writer to wherever we need to go to learn what they are.

So trust me on this one; you won’t be disappointed. Except, of course, like me you have to sit by patiently waiting for the next book. The anticipation is akin to what I experienced growing up with chapter books, when it seemed that every single installment ended in a cliffhanger, and the characters and I were all left hanging together. In an effort to minimize the damage to our fingernails, I will use whatever magic I can conjure up to prod Mr. Redick onward towards completion of book two. You have my promise.”

—Terry Brooks

Intrigued? I am. I have been ever since Terry finished reading The Red Wolf Conspiracy and told me it was the best thing he’s read in a long time.

If you are as intrigued and if you loved The Golden Compass, The Briar King and The Name of the Wind, you should pick up a copy!

After all, Terry blurbed those books as well!

Perhaps you’ve heard of me. I’m the hot new thing. I’m that improbably gifted young fantasy writer with the edgy material and the glacier-blue eyes. I am “A Sense of Wonder” made flesh but still approachable, still very much like you. For a long time now the genre has needed me, someone truly groundbreaking, truth-telling, bridge-building, someone who combines the tweediness of Tolkien with the beard of—

You’re not falling for it, are you?

Let’s start again. Hello, I’m Robert. I’ve just published a book called The Red Wolf Conspiracy. Within it you’ll find a boy whose head erupts frequently with demonic bird-noises, and a rat who weeps in corners, and a sea-nymph who falls in love with a human she might otherwise eat. They’re not cool. They’re misfits and lonely, and that loneliness is one of the paths by which I found them.

I have a soft spot for misfits, having been one roughly since my diaper years. Oh, not in any tragic, soul-scarring way: my misfit status has always been more a disposition than a curse. Recently it has also becoming an esthetic preference. Misfits suffer (and cause) far more interesting disasters than those who fit snugly into a culture or a camp. But writing books full of misfits somehow hasn’t taught me to quit playing the part.

Case in point: genre. No definition of “fantasy” this side of Freud could exclude The Red Wolf Conspiracy. That fact makes me (say it, say it) a genre writer. And I hasten to declare that the fantasy community has welcomed me with open arms. I’m humbled by its decency, inspired by its intelligence and zeal. But do I rest easy in the communal embrace? Not yet. That’s just me. I’ve never joined any club without chafing at the bylaws.

Which brings me to my thought experiment. To paraphrase John Lennon:

Imagine there’s no genres;
it isn’t hard to do.

No more romance or westerns,
And no spec fiction too.
Imagine all the novels

living side by side—

Before I write another word: no, I don’t really pine for that day. There’s plenty to regret about the prejudice and posturing and celebration of keyword-studded garbage that comes with genres, but their existence does have benefits beyond marketing and exclusion. There’s that vibrant community, which “literary writers” (more on them in a moment) can only dream about. There’s true freedom of terrain. And sometimes, especially with SFF, there’s an intellectual gauntlet thrown down for reader and writer alike.

Believe it or not, editors get nervous. We do. We’re taught to hide it behind our fans and laugh coyly in the face of dangerous reviews, but we’re as anxious as the next guy about our book launches. I have had the good-but-anxious-making fortune to have not one, not two, but THREE books come out in the space of about a month, of which two have already come out: Pati Nagle’s romantic high fantasy The Betrayal and Lane Robins’ gritty, lush fantasy Kings and Assassins, sequel to Maledicte.

And yes, I do spend my on sale dates—Tuesday! How did Tuesday become frightening as a concept?—clicking constantly over to our in-house pages on the books even though I know nothing will show up yet, re-reading the reviews that have come in, and generally acting like a nutter.

And as I am the editor on The Red Wolf Conspiracy, now that it’s getting close to the on sale date, I’m a bundle of nerves. But however swamped and anxious I am, I’m reminded that the authors feel it even more keenly while they’re trying to work. Red Wolf author Robert Redick wrote about the perils of series writing on his blog—and I take this as a cautionary tale for those who think the writing life is all berries and cream:

More interesting to some, however, may be the fact that I am shredded. Don’t take this as a complaint, but rather as field notes. I am currently doing promotional work for Book I, editing Book II for the last time, and furiously writing Book III. To any of these tasks I could easily devote all my waking hours, and still feel behind. The attempt to do all three well and simultaneously has given new meaning to Master Bilbo’s self-characterization as butter scraped over too much bread.

I switch on the computer in the morning before I’ve properly opened my eyes. I feel guilty about stopping work long enough to look for clean socks. I have an appearance of outward calm that is almost somnambulistic, but my insides are a haphazardly stuffed cavern of poorly processed anxieties. I crave caffeine; I drink it, and my stomach goes haywire. When I switch off the light at night, the list of tasks I haven’t attended to descends like a swarm.

… But isn’t this what I was working for all along?

More of Robert’s thoughts on the merits of being an author here.

There are so many cool things to do at a Comic Con, it’s hard to even list them all.

But one of my favorites has to be the publisher booth signing!

Del Rey Books asked a dozen of their Comic Con visiting authors to swing by and sign for an hour. The other sci-fi/fantasy publishers, from Eos to Orbit to Tor to Spectra, all had signings as well, giving books away to promote their writers and allowing those writers to sign for anyone who would walk up.

It is a smart way to advertise, especially now with the internet(s).

If you give away 200 books for one writer and 100 read the book, enjoy it and tell others online to go buy it and those buyers tell others to buy it (see my Mr. Madoff pyramid rationale here?), the publisher booth signing can be a great, relatively free publicity tool with far reaching sales possibilities.

But for the writers, I think, the booth signings are just fun—as they were for Peter V. Brett and Robert V.S. Redick!